Great House

Nov 17, 2010 Joel rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, 52-in-2010, library-books, stories-no-wait-a-novel-no-wait, vote-getters

So I say again: writing a book of short stories, fitting them together Tetris-like, and calling it a novel DOES NOT MAKE YOUR BOOK A NOVEL. Also telling your publisher to put "a novel" on the cover after the title DOES NOT MAKE YOUR BOOK A NOVEL. If you write a collection of short stories, IT IS OK TO CALL IT A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES. Because you are Nicole Krauss, especially, because you will probably STILL BE NOMINATED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD.

***

(EDIT: But YOU WON'T WIN, thankfully!...more So I say again: writing a book of short stories, fitting them together Tetris-like, and calling it a novel DOES NOT MAKE YOUR BOOK A NOVEL. Also telling your publisher to put "a novel" on the cover after the title DOES NOT MAKE YOUR BOOK A NOVEL. If you write a collection of short stories, IT IS OK TO CALL IT A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES. Because you are Nicole Krauss, especially, because you will probably STILL BE NOMINATED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD.

***

(EDIT: But YOU WON'T WIN, thankfully! Lord of Misrule will win.)

***

This is a very well written book throughout, meaning sentence by sentence. Nicole Krauss can string words together effortlessly, can create haunting and memorable imagery through evocative metaphors you'd never dream of. But... all those sentences didn't add up to much of anything for me. It definitely feels like the form is what interests her, but the Big Idea (interconnected stories that are all related to the perhaps malovelent presence of an imposing desk, its many tiny drawers standing in for the melodramatic seekrits! and secret pains of its many owners) obscures the characters.

It sounds interesting, but it isn't. It's monotonous, and confusing. Puzzling out the structure is a pain in the neck because the stories, each with a different narrator, all sound the same, whether the speaker is a middle-aged American woman or an elderly male Hungarian Jew. Everyone mopes about the WEIGHT OF MEMORY (this was probably explained to me on the jacket copy because I honestly had a hard enough time concentrating on the plot), which is symbolized by furniture and also by how they constantly talk about their horrible memories. I don't have to like the characters, but not a one of them had much of a spark, which made reading about them distasteful AND dull.

I can't say I'm surprised this was nominated for the National Book Award, but I am disappointed, because I think if it wins, a lot of extra people are going to read it, and a lot of them aren't going to like it. And I read a lot of other books this year, books that weren't nominated, that I think would benefit from the extra attention and might also be a lot less likely to alienate readers. For all of the depth of talent on display in the prose, this is an oddly lifeless book, and I don't see it connecting with most readers, even "serious readers."

In conclusion: I would not recommend Great House: A Collection of Stories and I certainly don't recommend Great House: A Novel.(less)

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Mar 14, 2013 Beth rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: listened

I loved this story, I identified with so many of the characters. How a person can fold into themselves so much and not realize they are blocking out the rest of the world. How you can live with someone until death do you part and not really know them. How one decision changes someone's world. How we are all entitled to our secrets, to tell our secrets or to hold them till the grave. How the person holding the answer, to a question they never knew they had, has a choice, do they open the folded p...more

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Nov 04, 2010 Ursula rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels

This is the worst book I've read in years! The narratives are incredibly disjointed and confusing. None of the characters is interesting enough to warrant the energy required of the reader to piece together their stories in a meaningful way. The writing itself is trite and one gets the feeling that one has read similar stories by better writers. By far the worst flaw of the book is the lack of propulsion. I'm amazed that I read the entire book as there was nothing driving the book forward. Witho...more

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Jan 17, 2011 Stuart rated it 2 of 5 stars

Nicole Krauss' novel The History of Love was a fine effort by a young writer. I was hoping this new book would be even better. But Great House was a tedious read for me. The quality of the writing is very good, but there is no real story here. Like The History of Love, this novel is built on multiple narrations, but here the narrators are not the least bit interesting. They are a dreary, prissy lot, self absorbed to such a degree that they are just plain annoying.

Then there is the engine that d...more

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Feb 18, 2011 Kemper rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, modern-lit, plain-old-fiction

I’m more a genre guy than a literature reader, but I’ve been trying to branch out lately. I’m glad I did because I’ve read some amazing things that I probably wouldn’t have tried otherwise. However, it only takes one book like this send me running back to the mystery or sci-fi section for comfort. It wasn’t bad, but it’s just working so damn hard to be an ‘important’ book that it really isn’t much fun to read. And maybe all books shouldn’t be fun, but they really shouldn’t feel like this much wo...more I’m more a genre guy than a literature reader, but I’ve been trying to branch out lately. I’m glad I did because I’ve read some amazing things that I probably wouldn’t have tried otherwise. However, it only takes one book like this send me running back to the mystery or sci-fi section for comfort. It wasn’t bad, but it’s just working so damn hard to be an ‘important’ book that it really isn’t much fun to read. And maybe all books shouldn’t be fun, but they really shouldn’t feel like this much work either.

The book begins in the early 1970s in New York with a writer named Nadia losing all her furniture due to a break up with a boyfriend. A mutual friend steers Nadia to Daniel Varsky, a young Chilean poet who is getting ready to leave New York and has an apartment full of furniture he wants to loan out until he returns. The most impressive item is a large desk. Nadia takes the furniture and later hears that Daniel was tortured and killed in Chile during Pinochet’s brutal rule of the country.

Years pass and the one constant in Nadia’s life is the desk. However, when a young woman claiming to be Daniel’s daughter from a fling he had in Israel shows up, Nadia immediately relinquishes the desk to her, but soon regrets it.

Several other stories are told in parallel to Nadia’s. An Israeli man mourning the death of his wife pours his heart out in a story to the son he never understood. The husband of a British writer discovers a shocking secret about his wife after her death, and a young woman reflects on her love for a man who had an odd relationship with his sister and their father who is trying to recreate the study of his childhood home that was lost in the Holocaust. Eventually, the links between all of the stories emerge.

Krauss is one of those writers who impresses me technically but leaves me a bit cold despite writing something that was obviously going for the heart. A big part of my problem is that that four of the characters are almost exactly the same. Nadia, the British writer, the young woman in love, and the Israeli son are introverted types who live their lives mainly through books and words to the point of ignoring everything else. I especially found Nadia tiresome because this is a woman with every advantage who deliberately chooses her writing career over relationships yet whines about her own nature constantly. It’s hard to feel too sympathetic for someone who cut themselves off of their own free will and yet who is so fragile that the loss of a desk will plunge them into a depressive bout of writer’s block.

The plot comes together in a nice web of cause-and-effect, but overall this book felt like getting stuck in a conversation with someone who obviously wants to be doing something else, but then proceeds to tell you about everything they’ve talked about with their psychiatrist.(less)

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May 04, 2011 Kim rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary, cultured, mmxi

This book is not about a house, great or minute. It’s about a(view spoiler)

Okay, so maybe metaphorically speaking it could be about a great house, like as if we all live in the ‘great house’ of life blah blah blah but, really, it’s about a(view spoiler)

I’m not complaining. I really really like the (view spoiler) (aside: you can actually click on those... It's not a real spoiler, I just wanted to test that feature out.) It sounds l...more

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Sep 14, 2011 Jana rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: heart-and-mind

It is no doubtfully a beautiful book. And it has something that I’ve never seen before: sentence by sentence of this novel are thoroughly poetically contemplated and moving. It is one big explosion of wonder, how did Krauss do it? I was overwhelmed with her writing style.

But her four short stories are a bit confusing although they intertwine all the time. I don't know what really happened to all of them in this book. As one reviewer wrote, I as well wanted to draw a picture of how they are conn...more It is no doubtfully a beautiful book. And it has something that I’ve never seen before: sentence by sentence of this novel are thoroughly poetically contemplated and moving. It is one big explosion of wonder, how did Krauss do it? I was overwhelmed with her writing style.

But her four short stories are a bit confusing although they intertwine all the time. I don't know what really happened to all of them in this book. As one reviewer wrote, I as well wanted to draw a picture of how they are connected but I didn’t, because in the end it didn’t really matter. I would still be confused because essential riddle of life as well isn’t sweet and reasonable.

Great House moved me because of the palpable sadness. It grabbed me and tossed me around with dates, character plots and studies. Every character inherited sorrow and normal life is not possible for them. Their inner agonies are wincing and shaping them. There is as well this anguish that makes them very much unlikeable as people, but that is that – dark emotional intensity in all of them is something that will put off some of the future readers, and attract many.

These characters don’t look into their future, they are stuck in a moment, stuck in a time, stuck with their memories and years gone by. Lingering between fitting into the society and gluing itself to pondering.

This book on the other hand is a marvellous guide for future writers. Krauss spilled herself out. I felt like she gave the keys to her inner world of words, but not just by using those words that she so portently mastered, but was very insightful and raw with her own idea about what it means to be, breath and live as a writer. She did have this one sidekick where she purposely wrote that just because a book has been written that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s utterly subjective, and by saying this, she placed a safe net under her body. She encircled herself with respect and attention, but she still in the same time while bearing herself naked in the public eye, left a huge part of her professional life uncovered and mystical - that only belongs to Nicole the writer. Very wise move, some call it diplomacy as well.

But I truly believe that many still shy writers will silently quote her words, and take her words as their own shield.

I can say without hesitation that Krauss is an outstanding storyteller and analyst, but she will come to her zenith in ten, twenty years. She is very fruitful, but it’s apparent that she is still too heavy on herself, still slightly out of focus. But what a blissful out of focus stage that is. She is never going to write breezy literature because she is always going to be very much attuned and connected with frequencies that we as human send to each other when we want to recover, heal and breathe. (less)

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Jun 12, 2012 Dora Mossanen rated it 5 of 5 stars

A powerful novel of love and loss and the reverberating effects of historical atrocities on our children, Great House by Nicole Krauss (Norton, $24.95) is a testimony to the relentless grip of memory on our present, a series of interconnected stories rendered with poise and striking clarity.

As she proved in her previous novel, the international bestseller The History of Love, Krauss is an astute and compassionate author. She cares for her characters, cares to probe deep, spend time navigating th...more A powerful novel of love and loss and the reverberating effects of historical atrocities on our children, Great House by Nicole Krauss (Norton, $24.95) is a testimony to the relentless grip of memory on our present, a series of interconnected stories rendered with poise and striking clarity.

As she proved in her previous novel, the international bestseller The History of Love, Krauss is an astute and compassionate author. She cares for her characters, cares to probe deep, spend time navigating the emotional geography of each protagonist -- the old as well as the young -- to expose their most intimate conflicts, reflections and desires.

Great House brings to life the complex relationships of a solitary writer and an inherited desk, a father and his alienated son, a husband and his dying wife, and the suffocating hold a father, who is an antiques dealer, has on his son and daughter. Central to these stories is a massive desk owned by a Chilean poet who disappears at the hands of Pinochet's secret police. And always present, never forgotten, are the profound effects of the Holocaust, the way tragedy and loss shapes each character, and the plight of Israeli families -- those who lose children in war, and those who live in perpetual fear of the ring of a doorbell that might herald devastating news.

"Your Honor, in the winter of 1972 R and I broke up," begins the first sentence of "Great House," situating the reader in a courtroom. The speaker, a writer, is explaining how she came to own, and eventually lose, the mysterious, wooden desk with 19 drawers, "some small and some large, whose odd number and strange array, I realized now, on the cusp of their being suddenly taken from me, had come to signify a kind of guiding if mysterious order in my life, an order that, when my work was going well, took on an almost mystical quality."

After years, a woman who maintains that she is the poet's daughter appears to claim the desk, disrupting the writer's life; so much so that she decides to lock her apartment and travel to Jerusalem, perhaps to claim the desk back, although she denies it. The reason the protagonist is in court will be revealed much later; in the meantime, being led by a sure-penned author, we settle back and enjoy the journey.

In Israel, a father is reminiscing about his estranged son, Dov, a barrister, returned home from England to sit shiva for his mother. Krauss reveals a deep understanding of the human psyche and of a father's pain, anger, longing and envy in the old man who, in the little time left to him, aches to mend his relationship with his son -- even if father and son might not possess the right tools to do so. Always present is the all-consuming fear of losing his sons to war: "It was the doorbell we feared the most. Across the street they arrived at the Biletskis' to say that Itzhak, little Itzy whom you and Uri played with as children, had been killed in the Golan."

Across the oceans, in England, the doorbell rings to announce a different kind of trouble: at the door is a stranger the husband suspects of being his wife's lover, setting a series of incidents into motion that will unearth a far more disconcerting secret. And here, too, looms the presence of the mysterious desk that "overshadowed everything else like some sort of grotesque, threatening monster, clinging to most of one wall and bullying the other pathetic bits of furniture..." A desk that will someday reveal its own set of secrets.

In the meantime, a love affair is blooming "in the house in Belsize Park that [Yoav] shares with his sister, Leah." The house is wonderfully gothic, a significant character with eccentricities of its own, "a large and dilapidated brick Victorian... filled with darkly beautiful furniture that the father, a famous antiques dealer, kept there... the rooms were always changing, taking on the mysterious moods of houses and apartments whose owners had died, gone bankrupt, or simply decided to..." In the house in Belsize Park, under the austere shadow of their father, Yoav and Leah are "locked within the walls of their own family, and in the end it wasn't possible for them to belong to anyone else." Not unlike their father who, unable to free himself of the past, dedicates his life to reassembling his own father's study that was plundered by the Nazis -- an obsessed son who will not rest until every piece of furniture is sought, transported and arranged in its rightful place.

Once again, the doorbell rings. This time Weisz, the antiques dealer, is at the door:

"Forgive me for not calling in advance... There's something I'd like to discuss with you... A desk..."

To discover the fate of the desk, and whether the possessed Weisz succeeds in his quest, pick up Great House and read it, and once you have, circle around and read it once more to better appreciate the interconnected stories and doubly enjoy the magical prose and insight of an author at the top of her form.(less)

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Nov 24, 2012 Andy Miller rated it 5 of 5 stars

The novel consists of four stories, three of which are connected by possession of an antique desk. The desk belonged to a Jewish family in Europe that was stolen when the Nazis too the family, the son who survived the war spends his life putting finding his family home's furniture and that of other Jewish families. Through that story we learn of the Holocaust's effect on generations born after its end by seeing the impact on the furniture dealer's children.

The desk is taken to London and ends u...more The novel consists of four stories, three of which are connected by possession of an antique desk. The desk belonged to a Jewish family in Europe that was stolen when the Nazis too the family, the son who survived the war spends his life putting finding his family home's furniture and that of other Jewish families. Through that story we learn of the Holocaust's effect on generations born after its end by seeing the impact on the furniture dealer's children.

The desk is taken to London and ends up in the possession of a young writer who was able to escape the Nazis but left knowing that the rest of her family would be murdered. Her story is told from the perspective of her husband whose love for her allows him to accept her strong privacy and loneliness.

Through the husband we learn that she gave the desk to a young Chilean poet. The circumstances of her getting the desk and of giving the desk away remain largely a mystery. The Chilean poet leaves his desk temporarily with an American writer, but the temporary custody turns into 25 years as a result of the poet's return to Chile and become one of the "missing" of the Pinochet regime. The Chilean poet's brief appearances in the novel, both told by third parties, seems to haunt the book. The desk is then taken by the daughter of the furniture dealer with consequences that rip that family apart.

The novel is not as straightforward as the plot summary. Chapters weave from story to story, to different narratives, jumping back and forth across generations. There is a consistent loneliness throughout the book and I found myself throughout the book, and at the end of the book, wanting to know more about the characters and wanting to know what happened next to their lives

If I had one complaint about the novel is that some of the narrator's monologues about their lives got to be , well, monotonous. But on the whole this was a great book, one that makes you wonder about it while you are not reading it and makes you want to go back and read it again(less)

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Dec 19, 2011 Blair rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: past-and-present, short-stories, read-on-kindle

Great House is both a novel with an overarching theme, and a collection of short stories - most of which are told in two parts, and all of which have loose connections with the others. In All Rise, a lonely writer in New York is haunted by the memory of a Chilean poet she met many years ago. In True Kindness, an elderly man in Israel, close to death, is both infuriated and pained by recollections of his difficult relationship with his youngest son. In Swimming Holes, a man is consumed with jealo...more Great House is both a novel with an overarching theme, and a collection of short stories - most of which are told in two parts, and all of which have loose connections with the others. In All Rise, a lonely writer in New York is haunted by the memory of a Chilean poet she met many years ago. In True Kindness, an elderly man in Israel, close to death, is both infuriated and pained by recollections of his difficult relationship with his youngest son. In Swimming Holes, a man is consumed with jealousy over the mystery of his wife's connection to a young male visitor, and after her death he sets out to discover the truth about what they meant to one another. Finally, in Lies Told By Children, a young American student at Oxford University becomes infatuated with a brother and sister whose father, an antiques dealer, has devoted his life to recovering the furniture stolen from his family by the Nazis. A single motif connects these stories: a huge, imposing antique writer's desk, owned by a variety of the characters at different points in history, and pivotal to the lives of a few.

The significance of the desk varies between the stories; it really is a loose connection between them, something it's easy to describe in a review like this one, rather than a strong, unifying theme. It's most symbolic in All Rise, in which Nadia agrees to look after it for the poet Daniel Varsky, whom she never sees again. The desk represents the importance of writing in her life, even seeming to become an imposing, 'jealous' physical threat when she first sleeps with the man who will later become her husband. There are other, more subtle, running themes - although Nadia is the most obvious example, the book is full of characters who are consumed by their love of books and find it difficult to interact with others. These are not fairytale characters who find happiness among kindred spirits, however; they push people who care for them away, they are lonely, they suffer. I liked that about this book, a lot.

This is another of those literary novels that's all about characters looking back on their lives, meditating on loss, memory and regret. Everything seems to be unspoken, everything is dreadfully complicated, and everyone suffers in silence, hardly ever simply asking for the answers they seek. If Krauss was British I'm sure it would have been nominated for the Booker prize. In a lot of ways, it's nothing new, but the key thing is, this woman really can write. I frequently found the descriptions breathtaking, and the characterisation is wonderful; even if the characters' actions are often frustrating and sometimes very hard to understand, they seem so real. Since having my Kindle, I haven't used the highlighting function very much - I've never been the sort of person who underlines and marks key passages in books, even books I truly adore - but with this, I found myself highlighting paragraphs all over the place. This was partly because I strongly related to a couple of the characters (especially Nadia), but also because their observations were so beautifully put, succinct yet poetic.

My favourite part of the book, by far, was the first half of All Rise, and because this opened the book, I was concerned the rest wouldn't live up to it. I was sort of right about that: while the writing was consistently great throughout, I didn't connect with any of the other characters as I did with Nadia (although Isabel in Lies Told By Children came close). Aaron in True Kindness has by far the strongest and most distinctive voice, but I found his narrative hard to get along with. It's true that Great House could be described as a collection of tales rather than a novel, which might disappoint some readers expecting a whole and coherent story, but ultimately, it isn't this that's stopped me giving it a higher rating. I just felt there was something vital missing and however much I admired the style, I couldn't make the connection I wanted to with the story or most of its characters. I would read something else by Krauss, because I think she is a wonderful writer, but I just couldn't fall in love with this book.(less)

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Mar 10, 2012 Jennifer (aka EM) rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: prosetry

Moments of soaring, heart-shattering prose. Krauss has the ability with one sentence - the gaps between the words, really (what you're expecting, more than what you are reading) - to imply and evoke the depth of emotion from the tragedies of life. It doesn't hurt that her characters have undergone or are experiencing the greatest contemporary tragedies of our times - the Holocaust, war, political persecution, sickness, death, deep and unreconciled domestic splits.

Much of this is about writing a...more

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Feb 16, 2012 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: leans-towards-snooty

Nicole Krauss, a literary wunderkind, is married to another literary wunderkind, Jonathan Safroen Foer. For my money, Nicole Krauss is twice the writer Foer will ever be; her novel The History of Love was a mulitcontinental sprawl with only a few occasional lapses into melodrama and sentimentality. Great House is a gimmick book, with multiple narrators linked by a giant wooden desk, and Krauss takes a few mis-steps here as well, but if you're willing to put up with a bit of pretentious babbling...more

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Jan 24, 2011 Liz rated it 1 of 5 stars

I almost made it to page 100. I was thinking that the narrative was quite loose, plot developments subtle with a heavy focus on the characters' inner lives, a bit more intellectual than I typically choose, but I was soldiering on, trying to prove my literary merit as a reader. Hey guys, wait for me, I could have been an English major too! But when I read the following sentence, which occupies half of page 95, I gave myself permission to hang it up:

"But they didn't come, and so I continued to sit...more

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Nov 12, 2010 Hattie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Hattie by: Norton Books

I had great hopes for this book. It just never delivered on its promise. I felt bogged down with the characters lives without the desk that would connect the characters. I once owned a rolled top desk bought for me by my father. This piece of furniture is what drew me to the novel. Nicole Krauss does draw great characters, very three dimensional. Yoav and Leah, a sister and brother, with their father George Weisz, a very controlling man were magnificent in the novel. However, I wanted to hear mo...more

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Apr 23, 2012 Amandajane rated it 2 of 5 stars

honestly the only thing that got me through this book was that I was reading it for book club and didnt want to not finish. the book had some interesting characters, as well as a lot of self involved whiney ones. I would have been ok with it had their been some closure but in my opinion that didn't happen.

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Nov 01, 2011 Abby rated it 4 of 5 stars

Nicole Krauss has taken a theme that in lesser hands would be a cliché and written an original and meditative novel. An inanimate object, often a piece of jewelry or a musical instrument, passes through many hands over many years, changing lives and assuming disproportionate importance. I've read it before but not this time. [return][return]There is a desk that figures prominently in the four stories here – a huge, almost monstrous thing with nineteen drawers of various sizes – but the desk isn'...more

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Mar 23, 2013 Kirstie rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Those interested in Jewish culture, Pinochet, the human experience

Recommended to Kirstie by: My mom/Valerie

This is a great effort with gorgeous language (it took me forever just to type out all of my favorite quotes this time) and a real strong sense of each character. What is not quite clear is how much Krauss intended for each character to be connected. One thing is clear and that is each character is united around a mystical desk that seems to inspire a writer's words to all come together to make sense when without it, everything seems to fall apart. The desk is supposedly one that belonged to the...more

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Mar 19, 2013 Dolors rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2013

If you are looking for a light and simple story where there's a plot developed in the classic structure, this is not your book.
This is a tough novel, it requires guessing and work on your part, it's like a puzzle that somehow the reader has to put together. And for me, what makes it a great reading, is that you are not conscious of getting close to solving that puzzle, but when you turn the last page everything makes sense in a strange and singular way, like remembering your own memories, throug...more If you are looking for a light and simple story where there's a plot developed in the classic structure, this is not your book.
This is a tough novel, it requires guessing and work on your part, it's like a puzzle that somehow the reader has to put together. And for me, what makes it a great reading, is that you are not conscious of getting close to solving that puzzle, but when you turn the last page everything makes sense in a strange and singular way, like remembering your own memories, through flashes and blurred images.

Four seemingly unconnected stories in different times and places with only a "desk" in common, as if that desk is the only witness of the lives that cross its path, witness of sorrow, loneliness and loss. And, of course, of love. And as a lot of the characters that appear in the stories are writers or poets, I'd say this book also emanates love for literature and the art of composing in a very natural way.
A glimpse of the stories: a fifty year old writer regretting her chosen loneliness remembers a one night stand with a Chilean poet who later is murdered by Pinochet Regime. An old lawyer recently widowed struggles to communicate with one of his sons, with whom he's always felt estranged but whom he loves and hates deeply at the same time. An old writer who takes care of his sick wife discovers secrets from her past he isn't ready to digest. Two atypical brothers with a strange bond struggle trying not to disappoint their distant father.

The voices in the stories are poignant and evocative. I found myself rereading twice some paragraphs because of the beauty of some reflexions and a distinct force behind them. The writing style is sublime, the stories flow as in memories, there are no explicit facts or a lineal storyline, it's mostly feelings attached to past times which come like waves, they flow into your system and you finally forget it's a character talking, it could be your own conscience speaking.

I also think this is not a book for everybody and that it can become frustrating not knowing where all this rambling is leading, but if you let your mind free of constraint, you'll experience life in its core. Because that's what this book is about: life. And as I have read in some other reviews I wouldn't qualify this novel as oppressing or pessimistic, I'd say it's realistic. Won't we all have to deal with loss and frustration and death some time in our ives? How will our minds process those feelings? You've got the answer in this book. It's your choice to get it.(less)

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Mar 17, 2013 Chad rated it 3 of 5 stars

I really wanted to like Great House, but its meaning was entirely lost on me. (Perhaps if I were Jewish I would have appreciated the book more, or at least had the capacity to appreciate it.) I have little to add to:

• This: "Nicole Krauss can string words together effortlessly, can create haunting and memorable imagery through evocative metaphors you'd never dream of. But [] all those sentences didn't add up to much of anything for me. ... [The story] sounds interesting, but it isn't. It's mono...more I really wanted to like Great House, but its meaning was entirely lost on me. (Perhaps if I were Jewish I would have appreciated the book more, or at least had the capacity to appreciate it.) I have little to add to:

• This: "Nicole Krauss can string words together effortlessly, can create haunting and memorable imagery through evocative metaphors you'd never dream of. But [] all those sentences didn't add up to much of anything for me. ... [The story] sounds interesting, but it isn't. It's monotonous, and confusing. ... [T]he stories, each with a different narrator, all sound the same, whether the speaker is a middle-aged American woman or an elderly male Hungarian Jew. Everyone mopes about the WEIGHT OF MEMORY ..., which is symbolized by furniture and also by how they constantly talk about their horrible memories. ... For all of the depth of talent on display in the prose, this is an oddly lifeless book, and I don't see it connecting with most readers, even 'serious readers.'" (emphasis added);

• This: "Ultimately I felt a little let down that what could have been a superb novel ended up being too clever for it's [sic] own good. It was complicated enough without trying to be even more obscure. ... One reviewer said it was like a pack of cards that the author had dropped and picked up in the wrong order. I just think she left some on the floor."; or

• This: "[T]he novel’s four narrative threads are bowed by their own gravity, proceeding ponderously from revelation to revelation as if struggling to draw breath. Krauss is too deliberate a writer for this to be accidental. Unfortunately, it causes the book to be a difficult read. ... Krauss’ characters are frequently prisoners within themselves. Regretfully, this book caused me to feel the same--unable to tolerate more than a handful of pages each night before becoming desperate to escape the book, yet likewise unwilling to abandon what I’d already invested so much into. Though I was eager to discover how everything coalesced, and appreciate the intelligence and thoughtfulness of her prose, finishing this book was a relief, as if I had finally shrugged free of a shroud of tragedy that I never asked for in the first place." (emphasis added).

Here's hoping for better things from The History of Love, because Nicole Krauss is undoubtedly a extraordinarily talented writer, but Great House, for me, widely missed the mark.(less)

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Dec 19, 2012 Caren rated it 4 of 5 stars

There is an intricacy to the plotting in Great House that stimulated curiosity, even when the central idea about the One Desk That Unites Them All started to fail. The novel is full of reverberations and indistinct sensations that take a while to sort out. This is, of course, a kind of inevitability in a story organized around separate narrators who only briefly collide and whose stories are only partially known to each other. But, instead of turning that pattern into an isolating series of inte...more

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Oct 26, 2012 David rated it 3 of 5 stars

If only Nicole Krauss had learnt the skill of brevity. Her complex and literate book "Great House" is possibly the most tangled and confusing novel I have read for a long time. I liked the idea of the story being told by four separate characters (well five actually, but that is what I mean) at different times and in different places and this is challenging enough without being so oblique. We eventually find out who the narrators are talking to, except for the fourth. Is Isabel just talking to us...more If only Nicole Krauss had learnt the skill of brevity. Her complex and literate book "Great House" is possibly the most tangled and confusing novel I have read for a long time. I liked the idea of the story being told by four separate characters (well five actually, but that is what I mean) at different times and in different places and this is challenging enough without being so oblique. We eventually find out who the narrators are talking to, except for the fourth. Is Isabel just talking to us? And I like a book with jumps in time and place, but it needs to be consistent and sometimes we wonder where we are. Especially if you read it over a couple of weeks. So put all these together and you have a really challenging book. It is certainly not without merit, and there are many passages that will stay with me. The writing is sophisticated, compulsive and at times very instructive.

To illustrate my concerns, I have to refer to a letter written by Lea to Isabel in the last of the four sections that make up Part One. This is a most valuable piece of information about this particular story, but in my view should have waited until the end of the book which is when it was written. It almost gives too much away. And then by the time you read Part Two, you have forgotten what it said. The link between the four stories is a huge old desk that belonged to the father of one of the main characters before it was stolen, along with all his furniture, in 1944. Although it never appears in the second story which seems like it it is from another book. There are passages where our narrators recall memories, but these are sometimes too long, boring and detract from the narrative. It seems like the book is really a memoir or a confession. But just as you become frustrated, there appears a gripping passage.

Ultimately I felt a little let down that what could have been a superb novel ended up being too clever for it's own good. It was complicated enough without trying to be even more obscure. I will try to read it again, this time not having to unravel what is going on, and missing out "True Kindness". The explanation of this part's title not for the faint hearted. One reviewer said it was like a pack of cards that the author had dropped and picked up in the wrong order. I just think she left some on the floor. (less)

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Oct 22, 2012 Annette rated it 2 of 5 stars

Great House just isn't the book for me. I read a great review of Great House, and I know it was a finalist for the National Book Award and has won some other awards, so I wanted to read it.

I don't read much literary fiction, and I could really appreciate the beautiful language and descriptions Krauss uses. Great House is beautifully written, there's no doubt about that. I don't think anyone would disagree with that fact. This is one book that I would have enjoyed being able to re-read certain ph...more Great House just isn't the book for me. I read a great review of Great House, and I know it was a finalist for the National Book Award and has won some other awards, so I wanted to read it.

I don't read much literary fiction, and I could really appreciate the beautiful language and descriptions Krauss uses. Great House is beautifully written, there's no doubt about that. I don't think anyone would disagree with that fact. This is one book that I would have enjoyed being able to re-read certain phrases and descriptions. I found myself listening to the audio, and then thinking, "Wait. What did she just say? I need to hear that again." But I didn't rewind, since I was listening (and usually driving.)

However, if I were reading this book instead of listening, I don't think I would have finished it. The story was confusing and excruciatingly detailed. There are three different stories that are seemingly unrelated. Eventually we realize that these three people are connected by a huge antique desk with many drawers. Each person has an attachment to the desk. (I wondered why the book wasn't titled "Great Desk.")

They are interesting people. There's an author who has written all her novels at the desk. There's an antique dealer from Jerusalem who is looking for the desk. And, there's a lawyer in London whose wife has Alzheimer's and also used the desk to write. Every story goes into great detail, flashes backwards and forwards, and involves much flowery prose.

I was really looking forward to these relationships all making sense and coming together at the end, which they do -- sort of. The ending just fizzled for me. I needed more explanation and wrap up. After contemplating my feelings, I realized that Great House requires the reader to make connections and draw conclusions on their own. Krauss just doesn't spell everything out for the reader. And, I feel kind of stupid, because I didn't "get it" or, at least not all of it. But, like I said, I don't read a lot of these types of books, so maybe my brain needs some exercising. I probably would have made more sense of the book if I had been able to flip back and forth and do some re-reading.

Each perspective has a different narrator and they were all excellent. I would recommend the audio for that reason, but perhaps having a print copy as back up might be helpful.

As always, this is only my opinion, and I'm giving Great House a rather low rating. But, as I said at the very beginning, I realize this isn't my type of book. Great House was definitely out of my comfort zone, so keep that in mind, because this book has garnered much critical acclaim.(less)

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Oct 16, 2012 Wendy rated it 4 of 5 stars

I love the way Nicole Krauss writes. There is no question this book is more opaque than "History of Love", but I think the themes are just as beautiful and compelling, even if the way each of the short stories intertwine is somewhat hard to untangle. I confess, upon finishing the book, I paged through it again, twice, with paper in hand so I could make a timeline and fit more of the pieces together. On the heels of reading "Cloud Atlas" (which is structured sort of similarly, so I was prepped to...more

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Oct 07, 2012 Shannon rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this novel, and highly recommend it! The multiple story lines cover the lives of people connected by ownership of a heirloom piece of furniture, a massive desk that has been passed from person to person.

The novel has a serious tone, and the stories tend to focus on the internal struggles of the characters. Many of the stories have an element of tragedy, and the different storylines give the reader a wider picture than any of the characters are allowed to see. I was left with a...more

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Oct 01, 2012 Carla rated it 3 of 5 stars

So basically this isn't a book about a house. It's a book about a desk. A big desk at that. Once filled with weirdly shaped draws (nineteen to be precise). All of the draws open except one, which has never been unlocked. And this desk is SUPER important to all four of the characters that you meet along your merry (if slightly pretentious) way. First up we have Nadia, a novelist who is Quite Important. She got the desk in a rather strange way. See the poet Daniel Varsky wasn't happy with the way...more So basically this isn't a book about a house. It's a book about a desk. A big desk at that. Once filled with weirdly shaped draws (nineteen to be precise). All of the draws open except one, which has never been unlocked. And this desk is SUPER important to all four of the characters that you meet along your merry (if slightly pretentious) way. First up we have Nadia, a novelist who is Quite Important. She got the desk in a rather strange way. See the poet Daniel Varsky wasn't happy with the way his county, Chile, was heading politically speaking. So in 1972 right the recently single and shockingly shy/maybe boring happens across this poet and his desk with 19 draws and over wine and a heavy conversation about Chilean poets, he leaves her his furniture to look after. (I know! people did that in the 70's it seems, maybe it's just me but that's a bit grody).

Except GASP! Daniel never comes back because he's arrested by Pinochet's police. And by arrested I obis mean tortured and murdered. So, boring introverted needs a good seeing to in the bedroom department Nadia keeps the desk. And over the years she writes all these literary novels and is very Important indeed. See this is where I lost interest, because it was all a bit too SERIOUS. I couldn't think why Nadia would want to keep this dead man's desk. Let alone not want to open the draw asap. I would be on that as soon as he was on his flight to Chile, if not before. But I suspect it's a good thing she's not a nosy so and so like me, because flash forward years and years and what do you know! Daniel had an illegitimate daughter he never knew about! So of course Nadia lets her have his old furniture, including the desk of 19 draws. Without any research into who this girl is. Nothing. Just hands it over. And her life falls apart. It soon came clear to me that if I met Nadia, our meeting would last around 2 minutes before I promptly fell asleep or died from boredom. I'm sorry, if you can't cope with life because you don't have a desk anymore then you are just a silly billy.

Enter Aaron, this Israeli lawyer who's recently widowed. He too is boring, but at least he has the decency to be angry at everything. Like serious fury guys, he is as mad as a hatter. I liked him the most because whilst everyone else was subdued and serious and blah he kind of made me sit up and really think about what I was reading. And that's you can't always understand other people and it's futile to think that you can.

Then we have Izzy, a student at Oxford (of course, it can't be a literary pretentious novel if one of the characters didn't go to Oxford!) , who tells us the tale of Daniel's daughter, Leah and her brother, Yoav, who Izzy is kind of in love with (who are all really boring). And their dad is this major strict guy who tracks down all the furniture stolen during the second world war from the jews. AH THE DESK OF IMPORTANCE. Then this old guy comes into the story who gave his dead wife (lots of widows in this book people, just a big book of sunshine) the desk of importance who loved it so much she gave it away. To Daniel. WELL I NEVER.

So basically, I would only read this book if you really really love literary fiction. It meditates on loss in a really specific and smart way, and there is no doubt that Krauss is an exceptional writer. Her strength does seem to lie in the way her writing is powerful yet unobtrusive, subdued yet quite piercing. However, the fact that it didn't cement itself because of the narrator and dialogue change, it felt a little off; clunky and disjointed and not really all at one together, which i guess was her intention. I just didn't feel they meshed to make one novel. I'm going to try her other book The History of Love and see how I feel about that one.(less)

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Sep 10, 2012 Edward S. Portman rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

La metà ingiustamente ritentuta meno famosa della famiglia, conosciuta ai più vili come la moglie di Jonathan Safran Foer, e ai più stolti come la moglie di quello di Molto forte, incredibilmente vicino, sforna un libro di una tenerezza incredibile capace di afferrare il lettore con una presa soffice ma allo stesso tempo decisa, senza dargli la possibilità di scappare o andare via. Chi legge La grande casa non avrà via di scampo: dovrà portarlo a termine nel minor tempo possibile, perché le pagi...more

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Aug 01, 2012 Travis rated it 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed Nicole Krauss's 2005 THE HISTORY OF LOVE and was looking forward to this one. Looking back, my main beef with the previous book was that the form sometimes got in the way of the story, and stylistic flourishes sometimes stood in for character development. Still, those were quibbling concerns. I loved the book, found it to be deeply affecting, and I've often recommended to others.

Reading this new book, I see that I must have stolen my criticisms of the old from someone who matters, bec...more I enjoyed Nicole Krauss's 2005 THE HISTORY OF LOVE and was looking forward to this one. Looking back, my main beef with the previous book was that the form sometimes got in the way of the story, and stylistic flourishes sometimes stood in for character development. Still, those were quibbling concerns. I loved the book, found it to be deeply affecting, and I've often recommended to others.

Reading this new book, I see that I must have stolen my criticisms of the old from someone who matters, because Krauss took them to heart. GREAT HOUSE is masterfully controlled, carefully structured, and beautifully written on the sentence level. It's also a mysterious book. Although we're following the travels of an imposing old desk, we're never quite able to pin down it's movements. We're also concerned with the connections between the four intersecting plotlines, but these are never made quite clear (although I think it's possible to leave with a good idea). The titular "great house" refers to Judaism, or the fragmented collective memories of the Jewish people. In the end, I read the book as a kind of portrait of Jews as a people obsessed with memory and imbued with a kind of moral and intellectual curiosity. I don't think I've ever read a more moving and compassionate defense of Judaism, and I felt like I came to a new understanding of the religion through reading this.

That said, there are some issues. The four plotlines--and more importantly the four first person narrators--sometimes blend together. The characters all seem to have the same problems. Also, style trumps everything else in this book. There are no quotation marks, no paragraph breaks for dialogue, and very little speaking in general. Krauss never, ever breaks out of her measured, controlled tone. While I don't want to take anything away from the accomplishment, it can make for a sometimes grueling reading experience.

So what I want as a reader is to have it both ways, I want a book with the sense of fun and emotional authenticity Krauss displayed in HISTORY OF LOVE, and I want the mastery, the control, the great writing that's on display here, and I want them in one book. This may seem like an impossible task for a writer, but something tells me Krauss is up to it. (less)

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May 01, 2012 Matthew Lippart rated it 2 of 5 stars

The writing in this book is fantastic. There were times when I would read sentence and it would blow me away with its use of language, vivid imagery, and searing attention to detail. The author’s way of conflating the profound with the mundane was awe inspiring. As someone who pretends to write myself, I was jealous at my inability to ever craft a sentence even close to what she has done here. Good stuff.

So why the two? The plot (if it could be called that) was tedious, and the characters were a...more

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Apr 10, 2012 Pino Polizzi rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: narrativa-usa

Questo romanzo è uno squalo, che vive in un acquario. Lo squalo è collegato con degli elettrodi ai personaggi addormentati del romanzo. I personaggi sognano e lo squalo assorbe tutti i loro sogni.
Questo romanzo è una scrivania. Una scrivania monumentale con tantissimi strani cassetti. E uno dei cassetti è chiuso.
Questo romanzo è la casa di Freud, con lo studio ricreato identico a quello che Freud aveva in Germania prima della fuga. Questo romanzo è tante case, alcune piccole o sgradevoli, altre...more

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Mar 15, 2012 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars

As an avid fan of Nicole Krauss’s first two novels—A History of Love and Man Walks Into a Room—I hoped for great things from Great House. To a point, it matches these expectations, knitting an intricate tale of loss and repercussion. After three books, her themes remain consistent: Memory, solitude, loss, and the investment of personal meaning of everyday objects. In History, this was a book; in Great House, it is a writing desk. In both, she presents diverse narratives that eventually weave tog...more As an avid fan of Nicole Krauss’s first two novels—A History of Love and Man Walks Into a Room—I hoped for great things from Great House. To a point, it matches these expectations, knitting an intricate tale of loss and repercussion. After three books, her themes remain consistent: Memory, solitude, loss, and the investment of personal meaning of everyday objects. In History, this was a book; in Great House, it is a writing desk. In both, she presents diverse narratives that eventually weave together seamlessly.

Great House is an allegory for the legacy of Judaism, taking its name from the school founded by the first-century rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai, who persuaded his fellows to replace sacrifice with prayer. Jewish heritage is a weighty subject, and Krauss does not disappoint, creating characters that are realistic and poignant. Unfortunately, the novel’s four narrative threads are bowed by their own gravity, proceeding ponderously from revelation to revelation as if struggling to draw breath.

Krauss is too deliberate a writer for this to be accidental. Unfortunately, it causes the book to be a difficult read.
Where History’s characters were filled with charm, blending hilarity with tragedy, House’s are solemn individuals whose existence revolves around an almost solipsistic veneration of their own sorrow. The desk acts as a mirror, reflecting each character’s particular pathos. These characters have suffered, yes, and they have lost; however, much of the story is about what they have sacrificed at their own altars of introspection. What does it mean when you build your life around loss?

Each narrator struggles towards a greater meaning, a second chance, but the novel lacks any sense of urgency. Many of the passages are evocative and tenderly written, and Krauss undoubtedly is a master at tapping into the wellsprings of emotion that lay far beneath the surface. The stories are told with few interruptions, but they are strictly solitary in nature, which causes the narrative structure to work against itself. While the lack of quotation marks—a grammatical affectation occasionally used to great success by writers such as Cormac McCarthy—creates an aura of intimacy that is powerful, the larger questions being asked are buried beneath a constant stream of broken individuals droning on about their brokenness in a manner that broaches no contradiction. Simply, there is nothing left for the reader to discover about the characters on their own, except for the “a-ha!” moments when another link between characters falls into place.

Krauss’ s characters are frequently prisoners within themselves. Regretfully, this book caused me to feel the same—unable to tolerate more than a handful of pages each night before becoming desperate to escape the book, yet likewise unwilling to abandon what I’d already invested so much into. Though I was eager to discover how everything coalesced, and appreciate the intelligence and thoughtfulness of her prose, finishing this book was a relief, as if I had finally shrugged free of a shroud of tragedy that I never asked for in the first place.

Perhaps, with that, I finally understood.
(less)

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